For once, their pro-prosecution proclivities were good for something.
The Austin appeals court erred in deciding that the state’s money-laundering statute – used to prosecute associates of former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay – did not apply to transfers made via checks, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled today.
The court’s 9-0 decision also upheld the state’s election laws prohibiting corporations from making political contributions to candidates. DeLay’s associates – John Colyandro and Jim Ellis – had challenged the law as an unconstitutional infringement on First Amendment rights.
[…]
In 2008, the appeals court ruled that the money-laundering law did not apply to Colyandro and Ellis because it did not specifically refer to checks.
The law reads: “A person commits an offense if the person knowingly … conducts, supervises, or facilitates a transaction involving the proceeds of criminal activity.” The law defines proceeds as coin or paper money, U.S. Treasury notes and silver certificates and official foreign bank notes.
However, in its ruling today, the state’s highest criminal court chastised the lower court for applying an improper legal standard to its analysis of the money laundering statute.
Writing for the Court of Criminal Appeals, Presiding Judge Sharon Keller said Colyandro and Ellis improperly challenged the constitutionality of the money-laundering statute in a pretrial petition for a writ of habeas corpus. The appeals court had no authority to determine that the law only applies to cash payments, Keller wrote.
You can read the opinion here; thanks to TPJ for the pointer. See background here, here, here, and here. As Vince notes, this ought to clear the way once and for all for Tom DeLay and his buddies to be put on trial for money laundering for the illegal use of corporate campaign contributions in the 2002 election. The wheels do grind slowly, don’t they? I don’t know when the case will finally hit the courtroom, but I do know this: If DeLay appears for his day in court wearing his “Dancing with the Stars” costume, I’ll write a $100 check to the charity of his choice. BOR has more.
UPDATE: More from the Trib.
Cool. That should have been a no-brainer, but the Austin Court of Appeals had gotten pretty awful before Woodie Jones became chief justice in 2009.
Huh.
I thought I made progress when I discovered that my head didn’t HAVE to reside in my ass.
But now the CCA makes the same discovery?
Talk about a brave new world…
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